Chapter 22 Five Years Gone
Sable POV
Five years.
It still surprised me when I said it aloud. Five years since I’d run beneath the moonlight, since I’d crossed the boundary into the human world and refused to look back. Five years since the bond first pulsed hot and wild in my chest.
And still, it lived there. Quiet now, dulled with distance, but never gone. Like an old scar—sometimes aching, sometimes almost forgotten, but always a part of me.
College had not been easy. I’d worked double shifts at the diner to cover what scholarships couldn’t, snuck meals from the cafeteria into napkins when money ran thin, and spent countless nights curled over textbooks until dawn blurred into daylight.
There were days I nearly broke—when the weight of secrecy pressed too hard, when my wolf snarled against the leash I kept on her, when loneliness wrapped itself around me like chains.
But I made it.
Jenna, Tasha, and Sam became the family I didn’t know I needed. They taught me laughter could be enough, that late-night ramen in a cramped dorm room could feel like home. And though my wolf never stopped reminding me that Sam was not ours, I still let myself care for him in quiet ways—because caring made me feel human.
When graduation day came, I stood in a sea of caps and gowns, the tassel heavy in my fingers, and realized I had done what I swore I would: I’d built something that was mine.
Now, five years later, I worked as an account manager at Everbright Marketing, one of the city’s sleekest firms. The office buzzed with glass walls, bright branding, and enough ambition to choke a wolf. It was cutthroat, competitive, exhilarating.
And I thrived in it.
My wolf’s instincts gave me an edge humans couldn’t name: I read clients before they spoke, scented fear in their hesitation, victory in their eagerness. I could sense when someone was bluffing, when they were desperate, when they were ready to sign.
They called me relentless. Sharp. Unstoppable. They had no idea what I really was.
This week, the office had been alive with a new obsession.
“Have you heard?” Jenna—yes, the same Jenna, now my closest coworker—slid into the seat beside me in the conference room, her laptop open. “That company everyone’s talking about on social? Ironclad Enterprises? They’re expanding like wildfire. No one knows how they’re pulling numbers this strong, but every major player is trying to get them as a client.”
I nodded, though my heart gave an uneasy thump. The name scratched at something buried deep, but I brushed it off.
“They’ve built this insane following,” Jenna continued, excitement sparking in her voice. “It’s not just products. It’s a brand. People are calling it the empire of the decade.”
Empire.
The word made my skin prickle.
Our CEO, Mr. Donovan, entered then, clapping his hands to draw attention. “All right, people. Ironclad is the future. If we land them, it changes everything. We need strategies, pitches, campaigns—ideas that make us indispensable. This client is priority one.”
Around me, the room buzzed with eager chatter, people already sketching notes and ideas. I scribbled too, but my mind drifted, caught on that word. Empire.
Something about it felt… familiar.
That night, long after the office lights dimmed, I sat in my apartment with a glass of wine and my laptop open, scrolling through Ironclad’s online presence.
Their campaigns were clean, powerful, almost primal in their precision. They didn’t just sell—they commanded. Every post, every tagline, every product was crafted to spark loyalty, devotion, belonging.
The kind of belonging I’d once known.
And though the founder’s name wasn’t listed, a chill ran down my spine as I stared at the crest stamped on their logo: a stylized wolf’s head, subtle enough to pass as branding, but unmistakable to me.
The stylized wolf’s head stared back at me from the screen, sleek and metallic, its eyes rendered in sharp strokes of silver. To anyone else, it was just clever branding. To me, it whispered of nights spent beneath the pines, of oaths sworn in firelight, of power carried in blood.
My fingers hovered over the trackpad. For a heartbeat, I swore I smelled smoke, pine resin, and something darker—the scent of home.
I shut the laptop with a snap, shaking my head hard enough to make my wine slosh. “You’re imagining things, Sable,” I muttered. “It’s a company. Just a company.”
Still, sleep didn’t come easily.
The next morning at Everbright, Donovan announced that Ironclad’s executives had agreed to entertain pitches. Only three firms in the city were invited, and we were one of them. The room erupted into a frenzy of strategy talk and caffeine runs.
“Game-changer,” Jenna whispered, grinning at me over her coffee. “If you land this, they’ll be forced to make you partner.”
Her faith warmed me, but that word—land—made my wolf stir uneasily. I ignored her.
By the end of the week, I was buried in research. Ironclad’s empire sprawled across industries: tech, wellness, luxury goods, even real estate. The more I dug, the more seamless their expansion seemed, as though every move had been orchestrated years in advance.
Too seamless. Too calculated.
Every article, every press release, every anonymous interview painted the company as untouchable. Yet no one knew who stood at the top. A faceless empire, cloaked in steel and mystery.
Late one evening, my screen lit up with a headline: “Ironclad: The Silent Power Behind the City’s New Order.”
Something about it made my chest tighten. Silent power. That was the kind of rule only wolves understood.
I closed the tab before my imagination could spiral further. Whoever Ironclad was, they weren’t from my world. They couldn’t be.
And yet, when Donovan assigned me to lead the pitch team, I couldn’t shake the feeling that the past I’d buried was finally clawing its way back.